SVG on-track to qualify for ARCA Daytona race

Van Gisbergen has been forced into the ARCA Series this weekend as part of the licencing requirements for his Xfinity Series campaign.

All going well, he will thus have two races around the famous Florida superspeedway this Saturday (local time), having only driven on a short track in his previous oval start, in the NASCAR Trucks Series last August.

In the sole practice session for the ARCA field this weekend, the New Zealander was classified 13th in the #28 Pinnacle Motorsports Chevrolet with a best time of 49.512s on his seventh lap of 10.

Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter Marco Andretti set the pace with a 48.600s on his penultimate lap of 13 in the #17 Cook Racing Technologies Chevrolet.

Qualifying will take place on Friday afternoon (local time) in a unique format to accommodate the bumper entry list.

Drivers will head out in groups of up to nine cars, as determined by a random draw following practice, with each group given four minutes of track time.

They will then be classified on the basis of individual fastest laps, at which point the top 34 are locked into the race, with the final six spots reserved for provisional starts.

For reference, 34th-fastest in practice was a 51.069s and 35th-fastest was a 51.082s.

Of the aforementioned provisional starting positions, three will be reserved for the highest team owners in the final 2023 ARCA Series owner point standings not already qualified, noting that the #28 owned by Pinnacle co-founder Mark Webb ended up 23rd on the table.

Two additional provisional positions will be reserved for Golden A teams which participated in each of the series’ 20 races in 2023, while the final provisional position is reserved for a former driver or owner champion not otherwise qualified.

If the Golden A and/or past champion provisionals go unused, they would revert back to final 2023 owner points.

Van Gisbergen has this weekend be reunited, in a loose sense, with Commodore machinery given ARCA uses bodies based on the Gen 6 Cup Series cars and hence the Chevrolets are silhouettes of the VF model of the iconic Aussie nameplate, which was exported to the United States as the SS.

Xfinity Series Practice takes place on late-Friday afternoon (local time), a handful of hours after qualifying for ARCA.